It is. It’s almost as limited as the native app. It does have certain advantages over the native version, so it would be worth a try, but it still is not as capable as the Windows version.
And I would say that this is different from what Apple does with their software/ features, and I will explain. People are paying Microsoft to access Office on the iPad. With MS Office’s subscription cost for using it on the iPad, it really should have better features. Meanwhile, most of Apple’s apps are free, and the few that are subscription or paid for aren’t significantly worse on other platforms. Apple Music has an Android app which works fine. Heck, Apple’s iWork office software is free on Windows, and is either full-featured with the Mac version, or very close. I think people would be forgiving of some features missing from the iPad versions of Office compared to the Windows version, but what Microsoft has shipped here is so below par, especially considering you have to pay a subscription to use it… There’s really zero reason that customers paying just as much or possibly even more to access MS Office on their device should get such a badly hobbled version of it…
And many businesses required use of MS Office. None of Apple’s apps are really required by businesses. With an app that is so widely used and required in industry, MS should not be intentionally hobbling it so severely as they are. They should provide good enough support at least that it’s doable, even if a couple features remain limited to Windows. But I think Microsoft does this to maintain their grip on the industry, and ensure that companies use their software and their platform. It’s technically Microsoft’s prerogative to do this since it’s their software, but then I think they should at least charge less for it on other platforms.
Personally, I think the way they’ve intentionally hobbled MS Office on iPad is unacceptable given you have to pay the exact same amount of money to access it as is needed on Windows, which is ridiculous when you consider how different they are in feature-set. I hope Google Sheets and iWork continue to pull customers away from MS Office until they’re forced to provide more to customers…
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